Ah.... Pac-Man, the king of the arcades,
appearing on almost every home game console system ever.
In 1982, Pac-Man made his first home appearence in Tod
Frye's adaptation for the Atari VCS. Everyone and his
brother flocked to buy the game, and after playing it,
I can't help but ask: WHAT IS THIS?

Since everyone knows how to play it already (get all the dots
while avoiding the ghosts), I'll get right to it: this is a
terrible version, obiously put together by someone who didn't
care. Pac-Man and the ghosts move very slowly, and when you
eat a power pellet the ghost change color (but not expression).
Finally, none of the bonus fruits from the arcade game are
there, just a plain yellow block which is explained as a
"vitamin box" in the game's manual. Whatever...

The graphics are just awful, with blocky characters and tons
of flicker from the ghosts. See the screenshot on this page?
The reason you only see one ghost is because the other three
are in the middle of flicker mode, so they don't appear on
screen. The sounds are bad too, with none of the arcade
sounds -- just a generic bong-bong sound accompanied by some
tweets and beeps. The control also feels floaty.

After all is said and done, this version is a slap in the face
to Pac-fans, and the worst Pac-Man game in history. If you want
a 2600 Pac-fix, you'll be better of with Ms. Pac-Man
and Jr. Pac-Man, two far superior arcade translations.